Allison Pearson on the Channel 4 show which shows where we're going wrong in
our education system; the dodgy pals of the Duke of York; in praise of
William Hague and a special Justin Bieber surprise.

Two years ago, I made a resolution. There had been a gradual awareness, like the warmth leaving the air on a summer’s evening, that we no longer lived in a country where ability and hard work are all you need to get on. Class and connections were back. If, indeed, they had ever gone away. At a dinner party, a woman opposite me trilled: “Of course, in England, it still really matters where you went to school.” That did it. I began to practise benign nepotism. Whenever I could help a child from my sort of state-school background, I would. If the upper classes could pull strings for their own kind, why not we stroppy scions of the lower middles?

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The young people I took under my wing had plenty of GCSEs but they didn’t know how to make themselves acceptable to employers. They were cocky when they needed to be humble, late when they needed to be early, superglued to a mobile when they needed to listen. I got a text from one likely lad saying his interview with a publisher was “really cool”.

“Pls tell me ur not txting from the intervu,” I texted back. Reader, he was.

Then there was Vicky, who was studying to be a journalist. Her email contained two exceptional ideas and 19 spelling and grammatical errors. I pointed out that if Vicky didn’t check her work, she would never get an opening in a world where accuracy was the minimum requirement. She wrote back saying she was grateful for the criticism. Not a single teacher had drawn attention to her errors. Miss Nineteen Mistakes belongs to a generation that has been overpraised and undereducated, a toxic combination which has poisoned its future. Generation Self-Esteem think the world owes them a living; the world, being older, wiser and more grammatical, begs to differ.

If you want to see where this unfolding social disaster sprang from, read To Miss with Love. Katharine Birbalsingh’s painfully honest new book tells it how it is for an inner-city teacher and exposes the vapid educational philosophy that has stunted millions of lives. We enter a surreal, Lewis Carroll world where rude kids demand respect from teachers and awarding marks is believed to “stifle progress”. Birbalsingh’s headmaster tells his staff to prepare for an Ofsted inspection: “We simply cannot have a situation where teachers are teaching and children are listening… we need to see more fun in lessons.”

Not depressed enough yet? Then tune into Jamie’s Dream School on Channel 4. The dream school is where 20 children, supposedly failed by the education system, are exposed to the inspirational teaching of “18 of the most brilliant people in Britain”.

I am a huge fan of Jamie Oliver. The young chef has a better gut instinct for what ails this country than any politician. Jamie knows that something is badly amiss when disruption is as endemic in our classrooms as kebabs are in our diet. When it comes to nourishing proudly ignorant young minds, however, the poor guy has bitten off more than he can chew.

“You think you’re higher than everybody else because you’re a headmaster,” protests one Dream School student, brilliantly encapsulating the central problem. Instead of being put firmly in her place, the gobby madam is encouraged to share her grievances. I can just imagine how teachers who still bear the scars of trying to control these arrogant kids must flinch to see them strutting their stuff on television.

Every single pupil in Jamie’s school has ruined lessons in the past for better behaved classmates, but there is no shame, only shrill self-pity. “We had a new headmaster I didn’t agree with and I was excluded five times,” explains Jenny. Five times! As Birbalsingh points out, for a child to be excluded these days, he or she needs to have burnt down the school at least once. To be excluded five times makes you the offspring of Clytemnestra and Reggie Kray.

Isn’t this the real reason behind so many thousands of children being misdiagnosed as having “special needs”? Government reforms announced yesterday plan to take up to 170,000 kids off the special education needs register. They claim these children aren’t “special” – just underachieving. Or, as we used to call it, naughty. The reality is that struggling teachers are simply seeking any extra help they can get with difficult pupils.

The modern teacher has so few weapons in his armoury. In Dream School, when Dr David Starkey dares to remonstrate with one boy in the manner beloved of sadistic schoolmasters down the ages, it is the eminent historian who has to be summoned by the headmaster and taught a lesson in respect.

“Since when were the children in charge?” wonders Katharine Birbalsingh. Good question. In her book’s best moment, she describes going to a strict girls’ school in Jamaica, where the pupils complain that it is like a prison. They want access to the internet and to be free like Miss’s pupils back in London. “You are the ones who are truly free (enditals),” she tells them. “You are free to learn, free to grow up into sophisticated, well-spoken young ladies, free to develop critical thinking tools which will serve you well for the rest of your lives. What restricts you now is the very thing that will free you later.”

It is a beautiful definition of education, and a damning explanation of why pupils who get away with anything are the ones in chains.

- Can everyone please lay off William Hague? There have been claims a replacement Foreign Secretary has been lined up after Mr Hague gave an uncharacteristically lacklustre account of himself over the capture of British special forces by some Libyan farmers. The hyenas of Westminster smelled blood and are closing in.

Hague is one of the few reasons we have to still like this push-me—pull-you of a Coalition. Rumours about this very private Yorkshireman’s private life may distress him, but they do nothing to dent public respect for him. We like the man he is, whoever he may be. I spent a day with the then Tory leader just before the 2001 general election and he was the most likeable politician I have ever interviewed. The piece I wrote subsequently didn’t pull any punches about Hague’s shortcomings as a potential Prime Minister. He could have held a grudge. But when we later bumped into each other, he said his whole family had enjoyed my account of him. “It was fair,” he said, “Very fair.” Long may he represent the quiet Englishman in government. Besides, a lower-watt William glows twice as brightly as his dimmer colleagues.

-When the Duchess of York offered to sell access to her husband for £500,000 to an undercover reporter, it was a scandal. Ten months later, selling the Duke of York seems like rather a brilliant idea. FOR HIRE: English duke, impeccable family connections, billionaire socialites from dodgy former Soviet republics or dubious sons of dictators welcome. Will help banish “unhelpful” stereotypes about corrupt countries. No timewasters.

Like children, the Yorks are shielded from the consequences of their actions. When normal people make an unwise house purchase, they can face financial turmoil. When the Yorks’s Legoland mansion would not sell, the Duke apparently mentioned it to powerful friends abroad. It was bought by Timor Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan for £3million more than its £12million asking price in 2007. Buckingham Palace said the sale “did not commit the Prince to any other commercial arrangement”. Still, a chap might feel a bit indebted after such a generous tip. As for the Duchess, she admitted she was guilty of a gigantic error of judgment after accepting £15,000 from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Duchess’s errors of judgment are like London buses. Miss one and another three will be along in a minute.

“This is the first time ever in my life, I mean ever, that I have been debt-free,” she said. “It allows me to go forward to do what I do, being a good mother, a philanthropist for children…”

Except she isn’t debt-free. She offered her creditors just 25p for every pound they were owed, even though some of them are former members of her staff who can probably ill-afford the loss. To help her, the Duke sought a payment from Mr Epstein, who had been jailed for sex with under-age girls, which sits rather uneasily with the Duchess’s claim to be a philanthropist for children.

The Duke was also the patron of the NSPCC’s Full Stop campaign against child abuse, which most definitely makes Mr Epstein an undesirable acquaintance, let alone a man to be indebted to.

Drumming up trade is seldom a savoury business. Those who want the Duke only to shake hands with nice democrats should look at our balance of exports. Unfashionable though it seems, there are still plenty of people in the world who like to hobnob with nobs. The fourth in line to the throne is a big draw. His error has not been the company he is forced to keep in public; it is the company he chooses to keep in private.

- Older readers or music lovers may want to look away now. I have two spare tickets for Justin Bieber on the March 17 at the O2 arena in London. The golden rule of teen idols is that your own is always perfect and anyone else’s is embarrassing. Still, I am assured by my resident true Belieber that Justin is the coolest boy on the planet.

The seats are right at the front, and the girls who get them will be sitting so close that the most Googled celebrity on earth will be able to feel their hot sighs on his teeny, perfect head. It would be really nice to give them to deserving girls who might not otherwise be able to go and scream their heads off at Canada’s leading export. So please email me here at the Telegraph, telling me why you, or someone you know, deserve to be among the true Beliebers.